Charlson comorbidity index as a predictor of short-term outcomes after pulmonary resection

Background: The objective of this retrospective study is to evaluate the impact of the CCI on short-term outcomes in pulmonary resection.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 1,309 patients who underwent pulmonary surgery consecutively in our hospital.

Results: All patients were divided into complication group and non-complication group. CCI (P=0.012), blood loss (P=0.015) and type of surgery (P<0.001) were an independent risk factors for complications in multivariate analysis. Assuming a threshold of 3 for defining poor outcomes for pulmonary resection, the sensitivity and specificity were 87.9% and 44.2%, respectively. The area under the curve for CCI was 0.711 (P<0.001). There were 918 (70.1%) patients in the CCI ≤3 group and 391 (29.9%) patients in the CCI ≤3 group. The rate of poor outcome was 3.3% in the CCI ≤3 group, and 9.2% in the CCI >3 group (P<0.001).

Conclusions: The main finding of the present study was that CCI >3 was associated with a poor short-term outcome. For patients with CCI >3, it was suggested that the experienced surgical team should perform pulmonary resection in the shortest time and preserving the lung function as much as possible.